Orange Roses/Black Limbs

I can’t believe my good fortune. I am so grateful to be a Black woman. I would be jealous if I were anything else.
– Maya Angelou

This was one of the quotes I used when I posted one of these photos onto Instagram (however many decades ago) and it may not have a glaringly obvious link. What do orange roses have anything to do with being a black woman? Nothing.

I can tell you now it’s not a metaphor I wasn’t trying to be pretentiously artistic or anything of that nature. It was a simple as putting my limbs in the photos, limbs that belong to a black woman. A conversation that has been had and is being had is the lack of representation of black people in the media, be it movies, fashion shows, adverts or magazines. And it’s also applicable for stock images or extremely aesthetically pleasing images that bloggers/content creators/photographers use/make. Most of them don’t feature body parts or faces that are similar to my skin tone, which is irritating to say the least.

At the break of dawn, in my living room, I started taking photos of the roses, just because, and then the thought occurred to me to throw a leg or arm or hand in it too because representation matters.